History Literature / LightsAreOffButEveryonesHome

* WhamLine: [[spoiler: Diane, in a drunken breakdown, cries "I didn't kill my baby." This reveals she had a miscarriage, and that she was blamed for this by her parents. It also reveals that Diane's controlling, manipulative behavior towards Trent isn't just because she is trying to groom him for sex, but as a ''[[Main/Squick surrogate child]].'']]

* BabiesEverAfter: [[spoiler: The Epilogue explains that Keith Dingar, Trent's [[AllMenArePerverts sex-obsessed]] friend and Tabs, the [[HighSchoolHustler Drug Dealer,]] go on to get married and have a son - Keith Dingbar, Junior. Connor also goes on to have three children by two successive wives.]]

* CloudCuckooLander: Trent is obsessed with surreal imagery, dark horror and science fiction, and sometimes stays awake for days on end until he hallucinates. Diane's also fairly strange, breeding snakes and covered in tattoos. In the late 2000's, these were all very unusual traits. To a lesser degree, Tabs, the drug-dealer and Maria, Trent's friend and coworker, are as well. When Trent asks if Maria can keep his secret about Diane's age, her response is "[[MyHovercraftIsFullOfEels Los Chupacabras entran, pero no pueden salir!]]" delivered in a harsh whisper, as if it's deadly serious. When Staley eventually figures out what it means, he does not respond with perplexion, but with "[[WrongTurnAtAlbuquerque Where the fuck are they going, Ticonderoga?]]" Tabs wears heavy rings and is [[TheKlutz so poorly coordinated she accidentally strikes herself head-on with one, giving herself a black eye]]. Her response is to laugh about it.

* GothGirlsKnowMagic: Di's friend, Olive, is "uber-goth" and also a Wiccan. Di also reads Tarot Cards and believes in Astrology.
* GroinAttack: Leo Anderson kicks Trent in the balls, in an attempt to impress Caitlyn Newell. Trent also recalls an incident when Connor had some kind of an STD, and chose to 'remedy' it by using a cue-tip and peroxide. He did this in Trent's outdoor shower, [[VitriolicBestBuds while Trent and Keith sat back getting drunk and laughing about it.]]
* HenpeckedHusband: Nicholas is a leather-clad, muscular metal guitarist who stands six-one and is one of very few people Trent could imagine actually matching Connor Pressman in a fight. His girlfriend, Maria Garcia, is five-three and could easily be thrown across the room by Trent, let alone her boyfriend. Maria also makes rules for Nicholas, doesn't allow him to drink hard liquor or let his room get messy, and makes him carry around a toothbrush in case he needs to smoke socially with Trent or anyone else. It's amusing, [[spoiler: until the end of the book when they break up, off-screen.]]
* HighSchoolHustler: Tabitha "Tabs" Dingbar not only manages to deal drugs, but also liquors, cigars, vintage comics and video games, and even antique [[Creator/ClarkAshtonSmith Clark Ashton Smith]] anthologies for Trent and his more well-read friends. Rumors spread that she also sells used underwear and naked photos, though this is never confirmed [[spoiler: beyond the implication given in the epilogue, where it's revealed that, as Keith's wife, she has a successful stint on OnlyFans.]]

* KindHeartedCatLover: Trent feeds the stray cats in his neighborhood, who he names things like Cobain, Tupac, Picasso, Five-Lives, etc. Maria also has a tattoo of her first cat on her arm.

* NightmareSequence: Trent's nightmares fuel his fiction, specifically his sleep paralysis succubus, The Butterfly, which is depicted in his artistic style and other dreams in which the people around him morph into monsters. Trent is also obsessed with Carl Jung, and believes his dreams illustrate things that he's unable to consciously accept in his waking life.

* ShoutOut: Trent names a lot of chapters after either works of art he likes (''[[Literature/VenusInFurs Venus in Inks]]'' and ''The Menaced Assassin'') or songs he likes (''Glycerine'' and ''[[Music/PearlJam Don't Call Me Daughter]]''). One of his short stories is called ''[[Film/FatalAttraction Fetal Attraction]]'' and is about a fetal ghost out to kill her depressive, alcoholic twin brother. Perhaps more relevently, both the 2016 and 2019 web versions reference "[[Literature/TheRiseAndFallOfTheSkyValleyCult The Storms that took out East Kingstown in '99]]." This was edited out for the 2021 edition. His novel is likely named after a song by M83. He also references various horror authors such as [[Literature/AMartianOdyssey Stanley Weinbaum]], Creator/EdgarRiceBurroughs, Creator/RobertBloch, and Charles Beaumont, among others. John Callahan of ''{{WesternAnimation/Pelswick}}'' and [[Creator/MoWillems Mo Willems]] get shout outs as influences on Staley's art style.

* WhamLine: [[spoiler: Diane, in a drunken breakdown, cries "I didn't kill my baby." This reveals she had a miscarriage, and that she was blamed for this by her parents. It also reveals that Diane's controlling, manipulative behavior towards Trent isn't just because she is trying to groom him for sex, but as a ''surrogate child.'']]

* ExtremeLibido: Keith Dingbar, Trent's short, acne-riddled friend with an excruciating voice, is unhealthily obsessed with sex for an adolescent boy. For an ''adolescent. Boy.''

* InnocentlyInsensitive: Trent openly calls things "Retarded" or "Gay" even though he himself is an (undiagnosed) autism and his friend, Roger, is a [[spoiler: closeted gay boy.]] Averted with Caitlyn Newell and Leo Anderson, who openly call Trent a "Manlady" and "Tranny" because of his percieved androgyny. ValuesDissonance as this was common in the American Northeast in the late 2000's.

* SanitySlippage: [[spoiler: Diane, though whether she starts to slip because of the tension of a relationship with a sixteen-year-old or whether she was just better at hiding it in the beginning is debatable. Staley gets this too, though thankfully he gets better. Keeping in mind that "better" does not mean "Cured."]]

* SeinfeldianConversation: Whenever Staley talks with his friends, it might be about Di or what he's going through, but the characters are all still teenagers. Their short attention spans result in a number of random tangents which seem only vaguely related to the topics of conversation at hand.

* PinkElephants: [[spoiler: While on painkillers and alcohol along with slit wrists in an attempt to kill himself, Trent hallucinates that assorted technicolor demons and solid black shadow beings with the faces of his friends and family are assaulting him.]]

* [[spoiler: ClingyJealousGirl: Diane seems very relaxed at first, until she finds about Maria. Then she proceeds to almost driver her car off the road, 'explaining' why she has 'challenges' trusting either her or her boyfriend.]]

* LastNameBasis: Diane only ever refers to Trent as 'Stales' when she's happy with him. When she calls him Trent, [[spoiler: this is universally a pretense for suicide threats and nervous breakdowns that she uses to abuse and control him.]] Other characters alternate between 'Staley' and 'Trent' interchangeably.

* DestructiveRomance: Diane coddles Trent and nurtures his dependence on her, and in turn he does everything he can to please her even when she threatens suicide, antagonizes him and flat-out physically assaults him. Things quickly devolve from unhealthy codependency to uncompromising abuse and manipulation.

* EverybodyHasLotsOfSex: Connor lost his virginity at ''thirteen,'' and has slept with at least a dozen girls, which he makes known to literally everyone he comes across. Trent loses his virginity to Diane and they have sex frequently, but [[spoiler: Caitlyn Newell, the School Slut, is actually a virgin, which she reveals to Trent after Leo Anderson assaults her near the end of the novel.]]

* ShoutOut: Trent names a lot of chapters after either works of art he likes (''[[Literature/VenusInFurs Venus in Inks]]'' and ''The Menaced Assassin'') or songs he likes (''Glycerine'' and ''[[Music/PearlJam Don't Call Me Daughter]]''). One of his short stories is called ''[[Film/FatalAttraction Fetal Attraction]]'' and is about a fetal ghost out to kill her depressive, alcoholic twin brother. His novel is likely named after a song by M83. He also references various horror authors such as [[Literature/AMartianOdyssey Stanley Weinbaum]], Creator/EdgarRiceBurroughs, Creator/RobertBloch, and Charles Beaumont, among others. John Callahan of ''{{WesternAnimation/Pelswick}}'' and [[Creator/MoWillems Mo Willems]] get shout outs as influences on Staley's art style.

* AbusiveParents: Staley's Older brother and Legal Guardian, Vance, not only starves Trent and refuses to buy him food (Trent works at a Borders and pays for Ramen Noodles and Jerky that way), but is [[BlatantLies also delusionally convinced that their parents hated him and favored Trent]]; of which there is absolutely no evidence and which Trent chalks up to Vance's brain damage.

* PerkyGoth: Staley's Friend, Maria Garcia, is a petite gothic girl who loves ponies and kittens as well as skulls and tombstones. She continually tries to be kind to Trent and drag him out of his constant creative misery] and is the only one who's fully sympathetic to him [[spoiler: when he reveals Diane's abusive behaviors.]]

* CloudCuckooLander: Trent is obsessed with surreal imagery, dark horror and science fiction, and sometimes stays awake for days on end until he hallucinates. Diane's also fairly strange, breeding snakes and covered in tattoos. In the late 2000's, these were all very unusual traits. To a lesser degree, Tabs, the drug-dealer and Maria, Trent's friend and coworker, are as well. When Trent asks if Maria can keep his secret about Diane's age, her response is "[[MyHovercraftIsFullOfEels Los Chupacabras entran, pero no pueden salir!]]" delivered in a harsh whisper, as if it's deadly serious. When Staley eventually figures out what it means, he does not respond with perplexion, but with "[[WrongTurnAtAlburquerque Where the fuck are they going, Ticonderoga?]]" Tabs wears heavy rings and is [[TheKlutz so poorly coordinated she accidentally strikes herself head-on with one, giving herself a black eye]]. Her response is to laugh about it.

* CloudCuckooLander: Trent is obsessed with surreal imagery, dark horror and science fiction, and sometimes stays awake for days on end until he hallucinates. Diane's also fairly strange, breeding snakes and covered in tattoos. In the late 2000's, these were all very unusual traits. To a lesser degree, Tabs, the drug-dealer and Maria, Trent's friend and coworker, are as well. When Trent asks if Maria can keep his secret about Diane's age, her response is "[[MyHovercraftIsFullOfEels Los Chupacabras entran, pero no pueden salir!]]" delivered in a harsh whisper, as if it's deadly serious. When Staley eventually figures out what it means, he does not respond with perplexion, but with "[[WrongTurnAtAlberquerque Where the fuck are they going, Ticonderoga?]]" Tabs wears heavy rings and is [[TheKlutz so poorly coordinated she accidentally strikes herself head-on with one, giving herself a black eye]]. Her response is to laugh about it.

* CloudCuckooLander: Trent is obsessed with surreal imagery, dark horror and science fiction, and sometimes stays awake for days on end until he hallucinates. Diane's also fairly strange, breeding snakes and covered in tattoos. In the late 2000's, these were all very unusual traits. To a lesser degree, Tabs, the drug-dealer and Maria, Trent's friend and coworker, are as well. When Trent asks if Maria can keep his secret about Diane's age, her response is "[[MyHovercraftIsFullOfEels Los Chupacabras entran, pero no pueden salir!]]" delivered in a harsh whisper, as if it's deadly serious. When Staley eventually figures out what it means, he does not respond with perplexion, but with "Where the fuck are they going, Ticonderoga?" Tabs wears heavy rings and is [[TheKlutz so poorly coordinated she accidentally strikes herself head-on with one, giving herself a black eye]]. Her response is to laugh about it.

* SelfHarm: Trent notices a boy on Altworks.com (a thinly-veiled fictionalization of Myspace.com and Vampirefreaks.com) who posts pictures of his grotesquely mutilated torso, to the vocal approval of his dozens of female followers. [[spoiler: Trent later takes a broken bottle to his torso and wrists, leaving him CoveredInScars for the rest of his life. According to an interview, [[RealLifeWritesThePlot Kent Starrett based this on his real behavior in his teens and early twenties]].]]

* CloudCuckooLander: Trent is obsessed with surreal imagery, dark horror and science fiction, and sometimes stays awake for days on end until he hallucinates. Diane's also fairly strange, breeding snakes and covered in tattoos. In the late 2000's, these were all very unusual traits. To a lesser degree, Tabs, the drug-dealer and Maria, Trent's friend and coworker, are as well. When Trent asks if Maria can keep his secret about Diane's age, her response is "[[MyHovercraftIsFullOfEels Los Chupacabras entran, pero no pueden salir!]]" delivered in a harsh whisper, as if it's deadly serious. When Staley eventually figures out what it means, he does not respond with perplexion, but with "A donde cono van, Ticonderoga?" Tabs wears heavy rings and is [[TheKlutz so poorly coordinated she accidentally strikes herself head-on with one, giving herself a black eye]]. Her response is to laugh about it.

* CloudCuckooLander: Trent is obsessed with surreal imagery, dark horror and science fiction, and sometimes stays awake for days on end until he hallucinates. Diane's also fairly strange, breeding snakes and covered in tattoos. In the late 2000's, these were all very unusual traits. To a lesser degree, Tabs, the drug-dealer and Maria, Trent's friend and coworker, are as well. When Trent asks if Maria can keep his secret about Diane's age, her response is "[[MyHovercraftIsFullOfEels Los Chupacabras entran, pero no pueden salir!]]" delivered in a harsh whisper, as if it's deadly serious. Tabs wears heavy rings and is [[TheKlutz so poorly coordinated she accidentally strikes herself head-on with one, giving herself a black eye]]. Her response is to laugh about it.

* CloudCuckooLander: Trent is obsessed with surreal imagery, dark horror and science fiction, and sometimes stays awake for days on end until he hallucinates. Diane's also fairly strange, breeding snakes and covered in tattoos. In the late 2000's, these were all very unusual traits. To a lesser degree, Tabs, the drug-dealer and Maria, Trent's friend and coworker, are as well. When Trent asks if Maria can keep his secret about Diane's age, her response is "[[MyHovercraftIsFullOfEels Los Chupacabras entran, pero no pueden salir!]]" delivered in a harsh whisper, as if it's the phrase is deadly serious. Tabs wears heavy rings and is [[TheKlutz so poorly coordinated she accidentally strikes herself head-on with one, giving herself a black eye]]. Her response is to laugh about it.

* HighSchoolHustler: Tabitha "Tabs" Dingbar not only manages to deal drugs, but also liquors, cigars, vintage comics and video games, and even antique [[Creator/ClarkAshtonSmith Clark Ashton Smith]] anthologies for Trent and his more well-read friends.

* AppearanceAngst: Trent believes himself "not recognizably human" because of his emaciation, perpetually [[CreepyUndershadowedEyes baggy eyes]] and what everyone around him declares a totally androgynous appearance. Di later appears to value these traits, thinking of him as a PrettyBoy {{Bishonen}}, but [[spoiler: it's later implied these are just predatory lovebombing tactics.]]